The oddest sanctuary

It was a cave. Sylvie took a few steps over the rocky floor, feeling the clamminess of stone; she looked down. She had been wearing trainers, a few moments ago, though apparently they too were just the product of Wanda's magic. This far out, they were fading away.

Sylvie sighed. She squinted, looking around as best she could. It was dark, and it was hard to tell if the place was artificial or not. There was a roughness to the walls that suggested natural formation, but there were patches of smoothness on the ground.

Whatever the case, she was alone. Sylvie breathed out. That shouldn't have been a relief; she did want people, if just for the chance of company. After so long on display, though, she was glad of a small breather.

She wandered for a few steps. She could hear something, thinking about it, some distant grinding or clanking. Typical. Still, so long as it didn't intrude upon her...

Sylvie sat down. She wriggled a bit, trying to get comfortable with the rock digging into her bare butt, and rested the TemPad on the back of her knees. Maybe she should be more careful picking a target destination.

She had the time to choose now, at least. No sign of the TVA just yet either.

She could revisit somewhere she'd been. That was on the table; if she went somewhere she knew the co-ordinates of, and knew she could get clothes from, that would work. At the same time, the randomness of her travel was probably part of what kept the TVA off her tail.

She looked up again, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. This was a tunnel, she knew that, and down one way she could glimpse flickers of light. It was irregular, though; it reminded her more of industry than anything normal.

Reluctantly, Sylvie pushed herself back up to her feet, and started to walk. She crossed an arm over her breasts, clutching the TemPad tightly against her chest, though kept her other arm to her side for so long as she was alone.

Chewing on her lip, Sylvie looked from side to side, as the cavern began to widen out.

If it was dangerous, she had enchantment, and a way out. She doubted it would be though. Hopefully.

It was definitely a mechnical place though, she reflected; there were pistons, furnaces, channels for molten metal and the thrum of primitive machinery. Sylvie looked around; she didn't know what species to expect, but she couldn't see much. Just machinery.

A pair of glowing, orange eyes watched out from the darkness.

"Now who are you?" a remarkably amiable voice said.

Sylvie whirled around, hand quickly going between her legs to better hide. She flushed.

Then hesitated. She'd only identified machinery in this room; that didn't seem to be far off the mark. A metal face, with bright eyes, and the distinct metal sheen of a body. The way its lips moved didn't seem like a mask.

"You're an automaton," Sylvie said. "A robot."

"You're a fleshy thing," the robot said. "It's not nice to just call people that, is it? I have a name. Do you?"

"Sylvie," she said.

A robot. Probably not too concerned about modesty, then. Unlikely to find clothes here.

"Ultron," it said. "We aren't going to have a problem, are we?"

"Why would we have a problem?" Sylvie said.

Okay, maybe use the TemPad. She glanced around, slowly becoming away that what she'd taken for assorted mechnical parts were, when seen in a better light, body parts. Parts of would-be army.

"You're here, aren't you?" Ultron said.

"Look, I've had a really bad couple of weeks, could we cut the vagueness?" Sylvie said. "I just wanted to find a place to lay low for a while."

"You picked a hell of a place for it," Ultron said conversationally.

Only it didn't. Sylvie quickly turned around; a different body had started speaking. Ah. Yes. Robots.

"Kind of been a pattern," Sylvie said.

"I am trying to end the world," Ultron said pointedly. "Does tend to put a damper on quiet time."

"Are you?" Sylvie said. "I really couldn't give a damn about whatever world this is. You stay out of my hair, I stay out of yours, deal?"

One Ultron stared at her. She heard the grinding of metal as the other moved, and quickly turned.

"You are a curious one," it said.

"Well?" Sylvie said.

She was still trying to hide behind her arms. She wasn't sure if modesty mattered when talking to a robot, but she'd rather not take her chances.

The robot shrugged.

"I'll be watching," it said. "Don't interfere."

"Again, really don't care about your planet," Sylvie said.

Ultron drew away. Sylvie slumped, slowly backing out from the main industrial chamber. She stayed closer to it - the heat from the forge was relaxing - but opted to not tempt the apparently genocidal robot.

Whatever the case, she'd made contact, the TVA would show up soon. And if they did, she could probably trust Ultron to react.

She closed her eyes, and pulled her knees up to her chest, relaxing as best she could. The air was strange here, naturally cool, but with the heat of the metalworking hitting her in waves. She tried to pretend that was the only reason for the heat in her face.

Soon, she started to wonder if the TVA was just starting to slow down. She had seen them ransacked by Vikings, after all. First Westview, now here; she'd interacted with a local, that normally meant they'd have shown up by now.

She couldn't hear any more voices, nor see the tell-tale glimmer of yellow, nor hear the robot fighting any new trespassers.

Weird.

"Why are you here?"

Sylvie jumped, eyes quickly opening wide. Even if it was just a robot, its features looked so humanoid it was hard not to feel a flash of self-consciousness every time it looked at her. One had apparently decided to walk down her tunnel to find her.

"Don't you have anything better to do?!" Sylvie said.

"I'm doing it," Ultron said. "Working in one body at a time seems so... limiting. I don't know how you people do it."

Sylvie sighed. Well, if he was coming to her...

"I don't suppose you have, I don't know, a spare wardrobe lying around?" Sylvie said.

"Why would I have a wardrobe?" Ultron said.

Figured.

"I don't know, why would you have sarcasm? I thought I might as well ask," Sylvie said. "Why are you talking to me? I thought you wanted to get on with whatever you were doing."

"You interest me. Most of the time when I say I'm planning to kill billions, there's a lot of running and screaming and running and screaming," Ultron said. He sounded faintly bored. "Sometimes fighting."

"I told you, I don't care," Sylvie said.

It figured, she finally made it to an apparently quiet place, and her only company was a robot that wouldn't leave her alone. She shifted, pulled her legs up closer to her chest.

"It's just so unlike me," Ultron said. "I don't really know what to do if it doesn't end in a fight. Even torn up a few of my own bodies once or twice. Boredom, you know."

Sylvie groaned.

"You're not going away, are you?" she said.

"I am," Ultron said. "I'm doing a lot of things right now. Oh, there's one of those people I was telling you about, she's objecting to all this too."

Sylvie looked around, suddenly on edge. Ultron gave its best equivalent of an apologetic laugh.

"You can't see her. I lose track of which body's seeing what, sometimes," it said. "I'm bringing her here. Don't suppose you would be interested in explaining your point of view to her? It is very refreshing to have someone who's accepted the end of the world."

"Again, no," Sylvie said.

She sighed. Then hesitated. Wait, a stranger? Not a robot?

"Actually," she said. "This captive of yours. I'll talk to her, if you really want."

"Really? I've noticed you meat things tend to listen to one another more than anything else," Ultron said. "It would be much more convenient to do this without people getting in the way."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Sylvie said.

An overly friendly megolomaniacal robot. Of course this was one of the safest places she'd been in ages. No TVA apparently, and home-delivered clothes. Well, clothes on someone, but she could fix that soon enough.

Eventually, she stopped acknowledging Ultron, feeling distinctly grateful when those glowing eyes stopped focusing on her and she could go back to relaxing a little. She rested her TemPad on the back of her knees, scrolling through potential co-ordinates.

Hmm. The TVA hadn't come here yet, despite her interaction with a local. At a guess, it had been a couple of hours; either Ultron was another Wanda, too dangerous for them to want to get involved, or...

She didn't think this was a Westview situation. She still had control of her mind, so any TVA operative could get in and out quickly. That opened up an interesting possibility. Depending on how events her played out, she might get confirmation of her theory soon.

There was a rumble from somewhere down the underground lair, hours later. Sylvie jerked a little, opening her eyes. It had been nice to get a small nap for once. That probably signalled Ultron's little visitor.

Slowly, Sylvie stirred, standing up. She help the TemPad over her core, just on instinct, and looked side to side; her eyes and adjusted to the darkness now. This was definitely a man-made place, some underground facility from some old group, just taken over by this robot. And apparently was going to be destroyed, one way or the other.

The forges were still hot; it was building more of itself, even now. Sylvie carefully kept her distance from the fleet of automatons, hesitating for a second.

"Ah, excellent! I was coming to look for you," an Ultron said. "She's this way. I have to warn you, if you do end up trying to help her get away, I'll have to kill you. Regretfully, of course, you've been the most reasonable organic I've met, but it's only polite to let you know."

"Yeah, yeah," Sylvie said. "Just show me where she is."

It wasn't that far. There was a small cage in the corner, with an **** redhead slumped over inside it. She was wearing black, some kind of form-fitting catsuit; far from Sylvie's first choice of clothing, but she'd take it.

"Yoo hoo," there was already an Ultron by the cage. "Wake up. No, I may have hit her a bit too hard."

"I can deal with it," Sylvie said tiredly.

Honestly, she was grateful that the stranger was **** anyway. Only being seen naked by a robot was probably the better of her options.

Sylvie slipped into the cage, and crouched, then placed her hand on the side of the redhead's head. A jolt would awaken her, but first, Sylvie peered around inside her mind. She had some degree of training against mental influences, so Sylvie would need to concoct a scene from her memories to make her hand over her outfit.

Natasha. Her name was Natasha. An Avenger, a spy and fighter all at once, in conflict with Ultron.

Sylvie blinked a few times, focusing, getting a sudden flood of memories from Natasha's head. Someone had been rooting around in there recently; it was still half-open, more than most heads. Still, she could do what she had to. Natasha's eyes widened, and before she could take in her surroundings, she was somewhere else.

"You think she is the best choice for this mission?"

"Show us."

One could almost have believed this place was a manor, a respectable house, if one saw it in a photo. Natasha knew better. It was a front, the voices speaking Russian her superiors, and a place from which she would be assigned a mission. The Red Room had a long reach.

Sometimes it required inspection. She was expected to stay in the finest physical form, even on missions without any manipulative components; she hadn't asked which skillset would be required for the next one, she just obliged when she was asked, unzipping her tight leather suit slowly, letting it fall to the ground. She stepped out of it, and undid her black bra, and her panties, making no effort to cover up after. She stood to attention, nude, arms by her sides and waiting for her superiors' appraisal.

"Interesting."

Natasha shook her head, dismissing another reminder of unpleasant memories - there had been too many lately - recognizing Ultron's voice. At first, she saw the robot, staring into her cage. Then she saw a blonde walking out the cage door, a familiar black outfit in her hands.

Natasha managed to avoid showing any shock at the realization she was naked. Still, she pressed her legs together a little, and crossed her arms as she stood up in a way that almost looked prepared.

"Hey. Hey, you," Natasha said.

Sylvie ignored her. She had what she wanted, at least; she let the catsuit drop, eyeing it doubtfully, but shrugged. Better than nothing.

"When you said you'd talk to her, that wasn't what I has in mind," Ultron said.

"Yeah, I lied, kinda do that," Sylvie said.

She pulled the suit up high enough to slip her arms into it, and started to zip it up, concealing her breasts as she did; it wasn't a perfect fit, a bit awkward in spots, but it was certainly decent. The panties, she'd kept; the bra she'd given up as too irritating.

"Sorry, who are you?" Natasha said, clearly bewildered. "If you're working with him, you should know you can't-"

"I'm not working with anyone, I just wanted your outfit," Sylvie said. "This isn't hard."

"Disappointing," Ultron said.

Before anyone else could comment, there was a flash. A yellow rectangle opened up in the air; Sylvie was the only one who didn't look shocked.

Interesting. She'd glimpsed the conflict in Natasha's head; her friends against a robot bent on ending the world. Clearly only one side would survive, and it was only interacting with Natasha that had called the TVA here. Apparently the redhead running around naked would cause some variance.

Which raised the question of if a place doomed to be destroyed would leave much in the way of detectable variance. Sylvie stepped back, as Ultron turned his attention to the latest trespassers, and Natasha quickly looked around her cage for either weapons or modesty.

"This is probably my cue," Sylvie said. She fiddled with the TemPad.

Well, if apocalypses were the best place to hide, there was one she knew about...